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Wednesdav. August 29, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
The House Hard Hat
Introductions abound after summer vacations.
Being a confirmed egotist, I would like to introduce myself too: I am the Kansan's token conservative.
I am a congenital conservative. My mind is thoroughly infested with conservatism. In fact, my conservatism is terminal. (I still would vote for President Nixon and against George McGovern.)
Being a token conservative has certain responsibilities.
For one, I am expected to wear a thin, dark necktie and a vest, complete with gold pocket-watch chain. I also am expected to be in ROTC, have a moderately short baircut and be extremely wealthy.
Or I am expected to wear a hard hat and good clothing when George Wallace speaks.
But I meet none of these responsibilities.
"Conservative" is not a four-
letter word. Nor is it three four letter words combined. And it isn't a disease referred to by its initials.
At the risk of imitating a Western Civ lesson, conservatism basically is a combination of libertarianism and realism.
Freedom, to the libertarian, means each person guides his own life. Libertarianism allows no interference by society or by any individual. But libertarianism is an idealistic dream. In reality, people are fallible. Men won't always honor others' freedom.
Thus, to preserve freedom, a portion of that individual freedom must be restricted. This is the justification for government.
The conservative sees government as a necessary evil. Because it is evil, it must be limited and decentralized.
My disease causes me to believe this.
And the disease is epidemic. With slight variations, it is also known as liberalism. The disease's most common symptom is a desire to condemn those who disagree only about the name of the disease.
Eric Meyer
Conservatism & Resilience
The Washington Post
Bv TED FREDERICKSON
WASHINGTON—At a time when college campuses are calm and the left-wing militants of an earlier day have disappeared or lowered their voices, the Young Americans For Freedom (YAF) remain surprisingly active and resolutely conservative, with 94 enemies, as always, in government, liberals at home and Communities abroad.
YAF members sheeded sen. John Sephen McCarthy's name was mentioned in a public session and applauded wildly when Sen. Jessie Helms, R.N.C., related how he, Sen. Joseph Helms, the he was a right-wing extremist, answered, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
The estimated 900 members who gathered here in August for YAF's seven biennial convention enthusiastically applauded traditionally conservative speakers who espoused right-wing causes, but showed clear dislike for the Nixon administration.
But it wasn't rock-ribbed conservation that made this convention noteworthy. YAF has always been hard-line conservative since it was founded in 1960 by a group of young people gathered at the family estate of columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., and James Buckley, now a Conservative senator from New York, at Sharon Conn.
THEY LISTENED to speakers whose names read like a Who's Who of American conservatism: Rep. John Ashbrook, R-Ohio; Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz. and Rep. Joe Lieberman, R-Chicago Chamberbain; Indianapolis News Editor M. Stanton Evans; and Howard Phillips, YAF
Rather it is the resilience of the organization at a time when public regard for their work declines.
Old anti-communist heroes from the past were there, too, such as Former Navy Commander Lloyd Budher, captain of the spy ship USP BUEBL when it was captured by North Korea, and Herbert Wake, agent whose infiltration of the U.S. Commission party became the subject of a book and television series, "I Led Three Lives."
member who graduated to become acting head, and would be dismantler, until a court order stopped him, of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO).
YAF membership peaked at about 65,000 in 1969, dropped in 1970, and then leveled off at its current level of about 57,000 members in 2004. This may be due to different state, local or college chapters.
YAF is highly organized and well financed, with a national office staffed by 12 full-time employees and four regional offices in New York City, Houston, Seattle and Providence.
ACCORDING TO Wayne Thorburn YAF's 29-year-old full-time executive director, the dues comprise only about five per cent of the total YAF budget, with conservative adult benefactors providing the rest.
"We have a list of 105,000 conservative unions who have given at least once in the past year their nomination."
"We're not tax-exempt, so that has discouraged big contributors," said Thurston.
He said the average contribution was between $1 and $1, and that the largest contribution was $4.
He said that the YAF's national office had an annual budget of $400,000 and that YAF spending—if regional, statewide and local organizations were included—approached $23 million.
The membership, if the 900 delegates are an accurate sample, appears to be overwhelmingly white, middle to upper-middle class and predominantly of high-school and college.
There are, however, conflicts between libertarians and members with other views. These conflicts form out of the organization. At one time, libertarians controlled about one-third of the YAF organization, but a power struggle resulted in many libertarians leaving YAF
LIBERTARIANS ASk for example, how YAF can oppose the draft and yet oppose amnesty for draft resisters, and who an organization that supports limited government and opposes government intrusion may support. The regulation of marijuana use and abortion.
Donald Ersberger and David Walter, libertarians who were once in state YAF organizations but who left in the 1969 rift, were at this year's YAF convention, handing out literature and hoping to muster YAF support for libertarian positions.
Ernberger, who worked for Goldwater in 1964 and headed the libertarian caucus of YAF, says he believes there were no more than 25 libertarians among the 900 YAF members. "We're here," he said, "we're here, just talking to delegates, hoping that they'll keep an open mind," he said.
Walter, age 29, former Pennsylvania chairman of YAF until he left the organization in 1969, wore a button that showed a broken chain and the words
"We believe in isolationism politically and militarily," said Walter, "with but for peace."
Ronald Dockasi, a 22-year-old graduate student at Georgetown University who was re-elected to a second term as YAP national president in 1986, has been libertarian labels no longer are relevant.
"laissée faire," he believes that one flaw in YAF's limited-government concept is the group's support of a huge military complex and anti-combustion intervention abroad.
"the conservative philosophy we have is not an ideology," said Dockasi, "I believe YAP has less of a tendency to sloganize. YAP tends to look to each issue by itself, in depth.
"IN THE BEGINNING of YAF's history," said Docksael, "many joined because of hero worship for a Goldwater or a Buckley. But members are joining now because of identification with issues. I believe that will保証 the stability of our membership and the organization will not rise or fall with the fortunes of politicians.
"We definitely support limited government," said Docksaul, "but most conservatives have also supported a strong, vigilant national defense structure and opposed abortion. Although some of our resolutionists have a general lack oflibertarianism, it hasn't wasn't the intention. We haven't changed our principles a bit."
Docksaal's pet issue for the coming year is YAF support for a school voucher plan, whereby parents have the option of sending their children to public schools or receiving tuition vouchers to send them to private schools.
Support for such programs is an indication that YAF has shifted geares from being an organization that reacted to and opposed social activists of the 1960s, to an organization proposing its own conservative programs for the 1970's.
The 1969 convention, for example, had as its theme "Sock it to the Leftr," while this year's convention theme was "We Believe in America."
ANOTHER CHANGE from past conventions was the appearance of the delegates—many of them have adopted the sartorial and tortorial trappings of their 1960 opponents. There still were large numbers of short haircuts, caps and ties, beards, wired-traumatics, shaggy hairstyles and jeans weren't out of place.
A persistent theme, repeated by almost all speakers at the convention, has been devotion to conservatism first, the support of party second, and Richard Nixon last.
Although YAF passed a resolution condemning Watergate and demanding that President Nixon fully disclose his role in the disclosures, he has also supported for a Nixon resignation—especially now that Vice President Agnew, a favorite ally under criminal arrest, is in doubt.
"A month ago," said Judy Torburn, wife of the YAF executive director and herself head of the University of Maryland YAF, "I would have supported asking for the UMass program. Now that Agnew might be in trouble, I'd prefer to wait to see what happens."
Leaving the Land
The Washington Post
MORRISVILLE, Vt.—The dirty-white Brahmin ox lunged into their harness, humping their huge shoulders, clawing for a foottish in the dirt, straining to pull 9,500 pounds of weight at once. We were on vacation at the Lameloille County Fair watching the ox pulling contest.
3y STEPHEN S. ROSENFELD The Washington Post
The weathered man in his 20s leaning on the fence next to me eyeed the action longingly and said his family used to own that team but it had become too expensive for them. He took their four bales of hay a day. So his family had sold the farm and moved into town.
Inside the exhibit shed, a farmer pointed to the swollen haunches of his prize Herford, which looked as though it was a giant apple. He looked at the animal to provide the highest price but, But, he fretted, the meat price freeze might keep him from covering his rooketing skin. "We don't want people to eat," he
The New York antique dealers prowl New England for these auctions; a Cadillac with New York plates sat on the unmown grass in front of the sway-backed barn. The stuff was mostly junk, but the bidding seemed brisk. The most valuable item appeared to be a horse-drawn wagon being hauled loads to an interstate highway being extended nearby.
For seven years he has commuted weekends from a truck driving job in Massachusetts to his farm in northern Vermont, living for the day two years away when he will start drawing a Teamster's pension and be able to afford staying fulltime on his farm. Land costs have risen $300 per hour, so the price bid up by buyers of second homes—and he cannot afford to buy the extra acreage he needs, he said.
The next day, we went to a farm auction. A widower, unable to find anyone willing to buy his farm, was selling off the building, contents and his 60 acres separately.
What does new seem, at least in pace and intensity, is the way outsiders are coming in. Farms are being sold and broken up into or rented to or resort or retirement communities.
There is nothing new in Vermont, or in other rural areas, about the bittersweet process of families leaving land. I'm not even sure that the process is quickening.
Vermont and other such places have long attracted "summer people," not to speak of
tourists on the move. But now I wonder if the balance is not being irretrievably, somewhat scarringly tipped.
Consider the small towns of western Massachusetts, where we went after leaving Vermont. As a reporter there 16 years ago, I checked through the tax lists of little Monterey and found that summer people paid something like 80 per cent of the real estate taxes. The locals could not have been more pleased.
This year it's different. In nearby Sheffield, some land values have more than quintupled in the last few years, making it increasingly difficult for local people of modest means—especially young people—to afford them. Is why you see trailer ("mobile homes") around New England—Where they're permitted. The summer people think them unsightly, and often it seems that the locals don't want to allow any kind of housing where they live. Some families, whose children cost more in taxes to school than the families may pay in.
Locals with land find themselves under heavier temptation to sell high to the considerable number of people who are not aware of the Yankee Pursuit tradition in rural New England immunizes the locals from backscratching, if not plain corruption. There is a compacency or, if you insist, a lack of compacency with land and outsiders with money.
One would think that older locals, with their children who have stayed in town and are raising families, might constitute an odd exception to the usual scene, but this does not seem to be the case.
In Sheffield, these outsiders turn out to be not only from New York but, now, from Japan. A Japanese company has bought land in the Bronx and is building Falls—lovely spot. One understands they are investors looking for something safer than the dollar, and they have every right. But an investment group, some would describe it as the free movement of capital, others as a kind of colonialism.
It is not right that local people in rural places should become less and less able to afford to live, or to buy and build, in their own home towns. The flaw is aggravated when city people, even foreigners, take over the land.
Readers Respond
As a community volunteer, I have served four years on the steering committee of the Host Family program and have been a two-day-a-week worker in the Small World program for five years; I also serve on the board that administers International House at 1294 Oread St. In these capacities, I have known many satisfactory American family and foreign student relationships; I have seen many women working in different national groups.
Foreign Student Report 'Grossly Unfair'
The Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 500 words. All letters are written in standard capital letters according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and homebase; faculty must provide their name and position; must provide their name and address.
To the Editor:
It is grossly unfair to the hundreds of people in this community who have ex-
Over the last year, the Kansan has subjected us to the same song and umpleten verses of Zahid Iqbal's displeasure with and hostility toward various facets of foreign student life at KU and we were served a lecture in section F of the first Kansan this fall.
letters policy
Contributions to The Other Page, a proposed new bivewely Kansan offering, are strongly desired. The Other Page is intended as a compendium of information on better ways to do things and to get things done—a page of alternatives, if you will. Information should generally follow all the preceding "beforehand" guidelines, although submissions exceed 500 words in length will be considered for The Other Page. Art work is welcomed.
and their families that the Kanaan present only Iqbal's reporting based upon the book, "The Emperor's War," and was embarrassing to Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Stockwell that Iqbal presented them in two of his articles as the only satisfactory host for the emperor.
It is true that there have been student-host family relationships that have not worked out; the disappointments have been on both sides. When unsatisfactory relations persist, host family committee, new assignments are made. There are some students who will complain about all relationships in which they have not been able to take advantage of a family or have unreasonable demands for their lives. It is not confirmed to foreign students only).
There is a story about two strangers in a country store. The first asked the shopkeeper what kind of people he'd have for neighbors if he settled there.
The first stranger replied: "They were great people, friendly, helpful and a joy to have."
The shopkeeper scratched his head and inquired, "This place you're coming from; can you tell me where it is?"
A short time later, a second stranger approached the shopkeeper. "I want to know what kind of neighbors I'll have here."
The shopkeeper replied "That's the kind of folks you'll find here."
The shopkeeper asked, "What kind of neighbors did you have the last place you lived?" They were terrible," replied No. 2, and they interested in anybody but themselves."
The shopkeeper replied, "You're going to be unassisted, son. That's just the kind of job."
The Kansan could play a constructive role in making possible a better interchange of friendship between foreign students and the people of Lawrence. A series of articles on inter-cultural communications and the clash of customs that cause unintentional offense would be helpful to both natives and visitors.
There is need for factual reporting about the actual conditions of foreign student housing; is it a form of housing or housing problem? Do students knowingly move into substandard housing and then begin to complain?
In the interest of unbiased and constructive reportage, I hope the Kansan will assign a reporter with a new perspective to the international student beat this year.
Mavis Wiseman
1661 Stratford Road
Buses and Bicycles
To the Editor:
Since buses are as big and bicycles as small as anything driven across campus and since I drive them both, I thought I should have the position to comment on sensible bicycle positioning.
While driving my bus today on campus, I saw bicyclists riding in the middle of the lane, in the middle of the road, in the opposite side of traffic, parked in the road and three abreast and about every other sensible bicycle hikes are hated for.
With all the traffic, both on foot and on the road, on campus it makes no sense to place yourself in danger by riding thoughtlessly. It takes so little effort to ride in traffic safely, basically骑 your bike as you would drive a car, or riding with the train. You are safer than being possible except while passing, I fail to see why any other way would have any appeal.
And for all you people driving cars to class, you might do well to invest in a bicycle or a bus pass yourself and see what I'm talking about.
Kirk Fast
782 Maple
Parking by Seasons
To the Editor:
Herbert Galton
I find myself now the unwilling and unsuspecting buyer of such a permit also for this car. I have never had it, and have very little use and which I should not have bought had I been given the choice.
Permit me to express through your columns the opinion that the registration and application forms for parking staff are available. What question about the intended parking period,
Professor of Slavic Languages
Shifty River Misplaced Town Across Border
By CHARLES HILLINGER 1973 The Los Angeles Times
RIO RICO, Mex. —This town is in one wrong country. It really belongs to Texas.
"All my life I thought I was a Mexico. Now they tell me I'm a Texan," said 72-year-old Felipe Cantu, one of the 300 residents of Rico Ruco.
Rio Rico was once north of the Rio grande, but a change in the river course put it under pressure.
Now the Rio Ricans call themselves "Los Americanos Olvidados"—"The Forgotten Americans"—and many of them want their American rights.
The geographic mixup came about in 1906.
The strange story of the misplaced village might never have come to light if it hadn't been for James E. Hill Jr., an Arizona State University geography professor.
Nothing happened, not until the U.S. Department looked into the matter. Department looked into the matter.
The loop was forgotten, but according to international law, the land left dangling inside Mexico never lost its American identity.
Hill visited Rio Rico, but none of the people there ever heard of the boundary switch. He checked with officials of Hidalgo and found opposite side and found the same reaction.
THAT YEAR a Texas irrigation company built a large pumping station on the Rio Grande. As a consequence, the winding river—the international boundary—course and course and the northern end of a loop on the river in which the Rio Rico was located.
The agreement has been reached with the Mexican government whereby Rio Rice will be given to Mexico for an equal amount of unoccupied land 25 miles up river below McAllen, Tex. that now lies in Mexico. The area will be straightened at that point upstream.
IT IS HOPED the exchange will be accomplished in the next several years.
But what happens to "Los Americanos Ovidados?"
He is representing 40 Rio Ricans who are seeking formal documents of American citizens.
"Obviously they are as American as Richard Nixon," said Laurier B. McDonald, age 41, an Edinburg, Tex., attorney and historv buff.
Felipe Canto, the village patriarch, is the only proof of birth if documents are not available.
"I hope this whole business is settled quickly," said Cantu. "For myself, and other oldmen here, we are looking for someone to fill the old age pension from President Nixon."
During the prohibition years of the '20s, Rio Rico sprang up as a border town.
Younger Rio Ricars for the most part can't wait until they achieve their rights as American citizens and can move "to the other side."
**AMERICANS STREAMED** across the
land to patronize the night clubs, night club
and the amphitheatre.
The bridge was never rebuilt. The village was forgotten.
A two-lane bridge was completed in 1929. Rio Rico boasted the only dog track on the border at the time. More than 1,000 people lived in the town.
In 1941 a flood washed away the bridge, the commercial section and many of the bapgs.
U. S. immigration laws provide that anyone living in the United States since June 30, 1948, has the right to a permanent U.S. residential visa.
The majority of the people packed up and left.
That provision plus citizenship by right of birth means just about everyone in Rio Rico to vote.
And under: Texas law anyone who has
surrendered on a piece of land for 10 years is
the legal
So in addition to citizenship, Uncle Scam will pay the Rio Ricans for the property when Rio Rico is officially handed over to Mexico.
These are exciting times for the Texans of Rio Rico.
(C) 1973 The Los Angeles Times
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